


Assault and Battery

by Flantastic



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 00:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11391732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flantastic/pseuds/Flantastic
Summary: When Bond is apparently mugged, Q demands answers.





	Assault and Battery

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2017 007 Fest. Trope Reversal Prompt Table 009 "Mugged Bond".

 

 

 

 

“Have you heard the rumours?” R asked.

Q looked up from the watch he was working on and removed his jeweller’s eye glass.  He pulled his glasses down from where they perched on the top of his head back onto his nose so he could look at his deputy.

“What rumours?”

“Bond’s in Medical.”

“So?  He’s always banging himself up.” Q remarked, picking up his mug.  He peered inside it and was disappointed to find it was empty.

“Yes but not on his week off and certainly not at the hands of a mugger!”

“He was mugged?  When?  _How?”_

“Don’t know, but it must have been one hell of a fight to hospitalise a double oh agent.  Apparently he was hurt so badly he had to be rushed into surgery last night.”

“How odd.”  Q remarked casually, getting up from his workbench to position himself in front of his laptop.  Once he was sure R wasn’t watching him he quickly hacked into Medical’s roster sheet for the previous day.  There it was.  Details leapt out at him as he quickly scanned the document.  _Bond. J. 007…  Picked up by Emergency Services on Grove Road in Hounslow at 11:55pm… Redirected to MI6 once his identity had been confirmed…  Doctor Simon Kressler attending…  Multiple contusions… three stab wounds… broken nose... Emergency surgery to repair a perforated small intestine carried out…_  He went onto the Metropolitan Police’s not-so-secure server and called up the incident report.  He felt the cold shroud of uneasiness slide down his back as he read both it and the associated arrest report.  Q closed the tab feeling numb and picked up his mug to make it seem like he was going for another brew before walking out of the room.  Less ten minutes later he was slipping unseen into Bond’s.

The man himself looked up from his hospital bed when Q entered and attempted a cocky smile.  The effects where rather diminished by the terrible bruising on his face and his pale complexion.

“Here to give me a bed bath Quartermaster?”

“What the hell were you doing in Hounslow last night?” Q asked testily.

“Oh, you know.  Fancied a stroll.”

“A stroll?”  Q asked.  “A stroll that just so happened to take place just around the corner from my flat?”

“Was it really?”  Bond remarked, feigning surprise.  “Well I never…”

“Don’t give me that shit!”  Q snapped.  “What did you do?  Why the fuck is my ex-boyfriend in a police cell James?  You know the problems I’ve been having with him!  It’s bad enough that…”  He paused, dropping his head, unwilling to verbalise everything he’d been through in the past six months. “I can’t have you hanging around me as well…”

“Is that what he’s been doing?”  James asked gently. “Hanging around?”

Q hesitated.

“Because that’s not how I heard it.”  James continued, his voice low and soothing.  “The little birds told me that our Quartermaster’s ex-boyfriend was becoming a nuisance to him.  Trying to break into his flat, threatening him, following him…”

“James…”

“They told me that the police had nothing to go on.  They told me that he’d done nothing that was strictly illegal.  That you’d been told to keep a log.  Isn’t that right?  Make a list so that if he ever went too far they could prove in court that he’d actually meant to kill you or rape you or whatever he had planned.”  James’s voice rose.  “I could have killed that fucker for you in an instant but I honestly didn’t know if you’d ever forgive me for that.  So instead I followed him.  Found a way to get him locked up.  Get him away from you.”

Q felt his eyes brim with tears as a flare of rage washed over him.

“So you what, set him up?”

“Yes.”

“Let him beat you up?  Injure you so badly that no jury would fail to send him to prison.”

“Yes.  It just was a simple matter of slipping my watch and wallet into his pocket while he was stabbing me.”

Q barked out a hysterical laugh.

“Where did you get the knife?  No wait, you probably stole it out of his own kitchen drawer!  Did you break into his house James?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.  Q. He had the knife with him.  I intercepted him when I realised he was on his way to your flat.”

“He was…”  Q shook his head, the anger suddenly fleeing, leaving him feeling weak and disorientated.  Colin had caused him no end of trouble since Q had finished it with him but he’d never have thought… he wouldn’t have… could he?

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Q watched James climb out of his bed and limp across the room to him.  When he slipped his arms around him and pulled into a hug Q went willingly, resting his face on the taller man’s shoulder.  He slipped his hands up around his back and let out a shaky sigh.

“Shhh.  It’s okay…”  James murmured, kissing the top of his head. 

Q shook his head.  It wasn’t okay.  It was about a million miles away from okay.  Suddenly needing to see what Colin had done he reached up to untie the bows that kept the back of James’s hospital gown closed.  James seemed to sense what Q wanted because he stood passively as Q drew the garment down off his shoulders until he was left just in his undershorts.  There was a large bandage around James’s stomach and another above his right nipple.  A third was wrapped around his bicep and in between them his skin was mottled and bruised.  Q swallowed nervously, feeling nauseous as he ran his fingers over every injury.  The agent said nothing and let him do what he needed to do.

“Why?”  Q eventually whispered.  “Why did you let him hurt you so badly?”

He looked up and James was suddenly there, leaning in to capture his lips with his own.  The kiss was soft and warm and utterly unlike anything Q would ever have expected from the agent.  His arms wrapped around Q and drew him in again gently.  Q sighed as he realised what he should have seen all along.  Suddenly the reason for all of James’s visits to Q-Branch, the reason for his gentle flirting, the reason for his _closeness,_ it all made sense.  When they finally broke apart James smiled down at him.

“That’s why.”  He said simply.  “I would do anything for you Tom.  Anything.  That’s why I did what I did.  Because you needed to be free of him.  And because I love you.”

“But how did you get him to attack you like that?”  Q pleaded.  “How did you get him so angry that he’d try to bloody kill you?”

James huffed out a little laugh.

“I just told him I was your new boyfriend.”

 

 

 


End file.
